The ability to control short channel effects and to reduce leakage current are long felt needs in the semiconductor arts. One of the dominant contributors to standby power consumption is the so-called junction leakage current resulting from unwanted current flow at the p-n junctions. In many modern integrated circuit applications, it is necessary to provide increased channel doping concentrations for improved performance, but these increased channel doping concentrations exacerbate the leakage current problem.
Previous attempts to reduce junction leakage phenomena have included the (limited) use of so-called pocket implants and/or halo implants (although as is known, improving short channel requires heavy halo implants in general). While these approaches may nominally improve leakage current performance, they often bring with them a concomitant degradation in control over the short channel effect, hence worsening device performance.
What is needed in the art is a semiconductor structure that provides for reduced leakage current without degrading short channel effect performance.